Shuffle Off to Buffalo
Title card
Directed by	Rudolf Ising Isadore Freleng
Produced by	Hugh Harman Rudolf Ising Leon Schlesinger
Music by	Frank Marsales
Animation by	Isadore Freleng Paul Smith
Color process	Black-and-white
Production companies	Harman-Ising Productions Leon Schlesinger Productions
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date	July 8, 1933 (1933-07-08)
Running time	7 min
Country	United States
Language	English

Shuffle Off to Buffalo is a 1933 American animated comedy short film directed by Rudolf Ising and Isadore Freleng. It is the 25th film in the Merrie Melodies series, featuring the titular song by Al Dubin and Harry Warren from the film 42nd Street, and the first to be directed by Freleng, who would become a prominent director on the series.^[1][2][3] The short was released on July 8, 1933.^[4]

Plot

Storks transport babies from a factory to their to-be parents. Their owner, an old man, helps manage the services, giving a pair of Inuit twins stored in a refrigerator to a pair of parents who requested twins. He fulfills a request for a baby boy written in Hebrew despite not understanding a word. He then sings the titular song with the Jewish baby, who enters the nursery and sings with the other babies.

In the factory, elves help clean the freshly processed babies with towels and talcum baby powder. They are then strapped into their diapers made with paper towels. A crying baby, labeled as defective by an elf, is quickly drowned for good measure. The babies are then fed high-quality milk before being transported to the nursery. An elf is annoyed by crying babies, who then demand "cantor"; the elf then reveals himself to be literally Eddie Cantor in a costume, who sing the titular song with them. An Asian stereotype girl then continues to sing the titular song, while Cantor and more elves perform on a stage and the babies frolic.

Home media

Shuffle Off to Buffalo is available on disc 3 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6 DVD set.^[5]

References